Month: March 2010

Future Input Device

Often times when you hear about some future tech, the tech in question is actually nothing more than an over active imagination and a lot of 3d renderings and only vaguely backed up by a working example. That is what makes this video so exciting, it is an actual working example of a future input device.

We are all faced with the problem of how as things get smaller the surface area for interacting with a device gets smaller as well. This video shows research into and actual examples of using our body as the input device for any device.

Using the principles of bone conduction, and signature resonances, you too could one day play tetris using Skinput!

Quote

“The artists task is to contribute to evolution, encourage the mind, guarantee a detached view of social changes, conjure up positive energies, create sensuousness, reconcile reason and instinct, research possibilities and destroy clichés and prejudices.”

— Pipilotti Rist

(via Danielle Wilde)

moon

Duncan Jones’ Moon featuring Sam Rockwell, is quite the visual and intellectual treat delivered in a sci-fi and quite suspenseful package. Plus it has an amazing poster and it has the perfect soundtrack for the lonely, something is not quite right, remote landscape.

Netflix pegs my preferences as “Visually-striking” and “Mind-bending” and this film exemplifies both. Others have mentioned 2001 as having a lot of similarities and I would agree, if you didn’t like Kubrick’s Space Odyssey than you probably won’t appreciate moon either. There is even a seemingly menacing robot companion though this one is less homicidal.

I am a Strange Loop

Douglas Hofstadter’s I am a Strange Loop, is a somewhat strange and sometimes loopy romp through the nature of consciousness, specifically human consciousness. In many ways the author is desperately trying to stay on the course of scientific objectivity, and many of his arguments seem sound, but we end up with a deeply personal journey that in the end seems as if he has a personal axe to grind with his detractors.

If you stick your hand into a box full of envelopes and squeeze, you will be surprised to perceive something that feels very much like a marble in the center of the box. However, upon examination of the envelopes individually no such marble will be found. This example is the theme that permeates the book, and serves as an analogy of how in our minds we perceive a very real I-ness, we swear something is there but upon closer examination it dissolves into nothingness. How very Buddhist of him. Douglas sees the similarity to this eastern religion too, but for some reason doesn’t like the other nihilistic ideas that come with that territory.

I am readily won over, at least my scientific analytical self is, by Hofstader’s basic arguments, but apparently a lot of people need more convincing, because he spends an inordinate amount of time convincing us. With all of that I feel like the larger question remains unanswered, what separates the animate from inanimate in our universe. I feel like this is the real question, instead of trying to decide the relative amounts of hunekers, souls or consciousness particles in us all.

Kevin Haas

I find most print work not very exciting at all, but once in while something catches my eye. Kevin Haas has an interesting portfolio, sure there is the sparseness/minimalism that attracts me, but also the “technical drawing” style and urban fragments subject matter.

(via printeresting)

Signage

Over at the Slate.com they have an awesome article about design and international signage, in particular a growing “battle” concerning the emergency exit sign and the two prominent and seemingly opposite design strategies (even in something as basic as color). The article is definitely worth a read, especially if you make sure to click through to all of the awesome examples it references.

This article is also part of a larger series on signage, that is also worth a thorough checking out.

Marina Abramovic


This is all over the interweboblogosphere, but I am such a big performance art fanboy that I have to post it here as well. You can watch Marina Abramvic’s latest performance work LIVE from anywhere in the world. The performance is part of a large retrospective exhibit of her work at MOMA.

UPDATE (3/29/10):


An artist named Anya Liftig, used this performance as a venue for her own performance. It seems slightly antagonistic at first, but based on the interview this is really an extreme case of “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Very nice addition to the dialogue!

The Beaches of Agnes

What a wonderful film. Agnes Varda is a master filmmaker and this autobiographical documentary seamlessly blends love, memory, death, and a menagerie of film-making notables, and even an animated orange cat into an amazing collage that beautifully reflects her life. She truly understands her medium and is therefore able to play with it, extend and manipulate it, and use it so very effectively to tell her story.

Manohla Dargis states in the nytimes, she is “perhaps the only filmmaker who has both won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and strolled around an art exhibition while costumed as a potato.” This playfulness and not taking herself so seriously is another thing I like about her. The film feels light and humorous, perfectly fitting as she describes herself, “a little old lady, pleasantly plump.”

Above all I always love experiencing the product of a master of their craft and this film is no exception.

~~~

Since I haven’t written about it before, I would also like to take a moment to recommend one of her other films:

The Gleaners and I


This is another amazing offering from this acclaimed filmmaker. A beautiful and poignant meditation on waste and refuse in our society and the people who reject ignoring it, instead they engage it directly either for economic or philosophical reasons.